SQL Distinct
The SQL DISTINCT statement is used to query a table in which some columns may contain duplicate values. In this situation using the DISTINCT keyword will only return distinct values.
SQL DISTINCT Syntax
SELECT DISTINCT “column_name(s)”
FROM “table_name”
FROM “table_name”
By adding DISTINCT to the SQL SELECT statement query will only return DISTINCT values.
SQL DISTINCT Example
To demonstrate the above example assume that we have the following table called Games
| ID | Title | Release Date | Genres | Platform |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1001 | GTA IV | April 29, 2008 | Action-adventure | PS3,XBOX360 |
| 1002 | Gran Turismo 5 | November 24, 2010 | Racing | PS3 |
| 1003 | Assassin’s Creed | November 14, 2007 | Third person | PS3,XBOX360 |
| 1004 | Battlefield: Bad Company | June 26, 2008 | First person shooter | PS3,XBOX360 |
| 1005 | LittleBigPlanet | October 01, 2008 | Puzzle platformer | PS3 |
To SELECT all the DISTINCT values from the Platform column we would use the following query:
SELECT DISTINCT Platform
FROM Games
FROM Games
Once executed the resultset would look like this:
| Platform |
|---|
| PS3,XBOX360 |
| PS3 |
Give it a go and once you feel comfortable using the SQL DISTINCT statement move on to our next tutorial SQL WHERE.
